President Trump says accelerating the United States’ economic growth is one of his administration’s most cherished goals. . . . He embraced a legislative overhaul to the immigration system that, if enacted, would make that goal unattainable. . . .

Those employment-based immigrants [favored under Trump’s plans] would be selected according to a points system that would favor English speakers with higher levels of education and high-paying job offers. So much for the tired, huddled masses for whom the Statue of Liberty stands as a beacon. . . . While fresh immigrants do depress wages for some low-skill and minority workers, as Mr. Trump has argued, they act as rocket fuel for the overall economy. By cutting their numbers, Mr. Trump would undercut the nation’s prospects. – Trump’s War on Legal Immigration Would Cripple the Economy, The Washington Post, Editorial Board, 8/14/17 [Link]

Fact Check: The theme of this editorial is the tiresome mass immigration propaganda line that we don’t have enough native workers to maintain a prosperous economy. Once again, as this blog must keep repeating, we don’t have a labor shortage when millions of Americans are unemployed, out of the labor force, or involuntarily under-employed in part-time employment. Also, we are not facing worker shortages when experts agree that a large percentage of jobs now done by humans will be done by machines and computers in the near future.

Tiresome too is the sappy reference to “huddled masses” and the Statue of Liberty. Rather than deal with the practical issues of modern immigration policy, immigration enthusiasts invariably try to divert the discussion by milking emotion from a 19th century poem. As a matter of history, the original meaning of the Statue of Liberty was to “enlighten” the world with America ideals, not invite the world to come here. The statue was completed in 1886 and a plaque with the “huddled masses” poem added in 1903.

It’s interesting how the well-heeled editorialists of the Post, dismiss the wage depression that mass immigration inflicts on poor and low-skilled American workers. These huddled masses, yearning to breathe free from low wages and lost opportunities, are of little concern to those writers.

If mass immigration is such a wonderful “rocket fuel” for the economy then why have U.S. wages stagnated since the early seventies when the current wave of immigration began to rise. And why, since that time, has the U.S. middle class substantially declined. The economy that immigration mainly benefits is that of the wealthy who reap profits from cheap labor at the expense of workers. The Post represents the interests of that class.

Kansas Secretary of State of State Kris Kobach, a long-time supporter of immigration reform, has endorsed the RISE Act, which would cut legal immigration in half. Legal immigration now runs at the highest sustained level in our country’s history. About the prospects of this legislation passing, Kobach stated, “I think it has a shot. It wouldn’t say a long shot, but the odds are against it right now unless the red state Republicans can feel the heat from their base.

“Chicago is a ‘sanctuary city.’ That sounds nice, kind of like Oscar Schindler protecting Jews from the Nazis. It actually means protecting illegal aliens who commit crimes from being punished and deported. When President Donald Trump took office, some 300 jurisdictions, including 106 cities, actively interfered with federal law enforcement.”

A columnist writing in the Times of San Diegp asked why California has the highest poverty rate of any state in the union. Twenty percent of the state’s residents are below the poverty level, and another twenty percent live in “near poverty.” This is interesting because California is the state with the largest number and percentage of immigrants. Immigration advocates constantly maintain that mass immigration always brings prosperity. A study by the Heritage Foundation found that our present immigration system “imports poverty.”

A Politico/Morning Consult Poll found that majorities of American voters support key provisions of the RAISE Act. Forty-eight percent endorse its key proposal to cut legal immigration by 50 percent over the next ten years, while 39 percent oppose that reduction. Fifty-eight percent support limits on the number of refugees getting permanent residence, and 60 percent support a “point system” of qualifications as the key basis for admitting immigrants.

Words matter. In a democracy that values the rule of law, word choice is important, especially when those words come from voices of authority. . . . Three times in the news release, the phrase “illegal alien” was attributed to the attorney general. . . . Why does this matter? The phrase “illegal alien” plays into assumptions that immigrants living in this country without proper documentation are criminals. In fact, immigration status is often a civil matter, not a criminal one. – Loaded ‘illegal alien’ phrase introduced in sanctuary cities crackdown, Ted Slowik, the Chicago Tribune, 7/27/17. [Link]

Fact Check: “Illegal alien” is a term of long-standing formally recognized by the U.S. government, one example being the Internal Revenue Service. It is a factual description of a foreigner living in the United States without legal authorization. It is not a “loaded” phrase designed to give a false impression or malign people.

While it is true that illegal residence by foreigners in the U.S. is often not a criminal offense, it is at least a civil infraction which constitutes a violation of the law. An example is a foreigner who enters the U.S. on a temporary legal visa and then remains beyond the time the visa allows. Such an alien most definitely is illegally residing in the United States. But even if illegal residence is in the in the civil category, the violators in this category commonly commit criminal offences in order to maintain their residence, such as document fraud to obtain benefits and tax evasion.

So why do some commentators so strongly object to the term illegal alien? It truly appears that their agenda is to make it appear that illegal aliens have done nothing significantly wrong. Most often they call them “undocumented,” suggesting that their only problem is a lack of papers. This verbal sleight-of-hand diverts attention for the relevant issue: They lack legal papers because they are here illegally. In effect, these commentators are saying that our immigration laws don’t matter. Certainly that implies that the democratic right of the American people to decide who comes into our country doesn’t matter either.

Thus it is highly ironic when Slowik proclaims that our democracy should value the rule of law and that word choice matters. By suggesting that illegal aliens aren’t really illegal, he chooses words that undermine the rule of law.

In her column Wednesday, Ann Coulter discusses the RAISE Act bill and the corporate media’s failure to cover it:

The media have chosen not to cover the RAISE Act (Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment). This bill is their worst nightmare.

Instead of admitting immigrants on the basis of often specious “family” ties, the bill would finally allow us to choose the immigrants we want, based on merit, with points granted for skills, English proficiency, advanced degrees, actual job offers and so on.

White House Senior Policy Advisor Stephen Miller defended the defended provision the proposed Raise Act that would cut legal immigration in half. He noted that “We admitted about 300,000 people a year in the 70s. About half a million a year in the 80s. Now it’s over a million a year. So what happening now is not the norm. It’s actually unusual how many people we are letting in now.”

He continued, “There are segments in the extreme media–I wouldn’t call them mainstream–because it is extreme to want no borders. It’s extreme to want to have unlimited, cheap migration driving down working class-wages. These are extreme positions.

Illegal immigration across the southwest border surged 15% in July compared to the month before, Homeland Security announced Tuesday, signaling that President Trump’s early success in stemming the flow of aliens jumping the border has begun to lessen.

The likely explanation for the increase: Trump’s tough talk on halting the illegal alien flood caused many aliens to postpone crossing attempts for his first six months in office, but now with Congress refusing to fund construction of the border wall and liberal judges frustrating enforcement efforts, aliens realize the border is still largely open.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) criticized the proposed RAISE Act, claiming that its provision to cut legal immigration by half would aggravate an alleged shortage of American workers. Ryan is commonly a spokesman for the Republican Party’s cheap labor interests.

The congressman’s claim about a labor shortage is oblivious to the fact that the U.S. is now on the brink of a major revolution in automation. Some studies indicate that almost half the jobs done by people in recent years will be done by machines and computers in the near-future. In that situation, finding jobs for native-born Americans will be a leading challenge.

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"During
my years in Congress I was well acquainted with the good work that AIC
Foundation was doing to raise public awareness of America's immigration crisis.
It proposes the sensible solutions of enforcing our immigration laws and
limiting legal immigration to a level more conducive to assimilation
and the protection of American workers." -- Former Congressman Paul Broun
(R-GA)

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